Abstract:By using data from Parsivel laser precipitation particle spectrometer, the raindrop spectrum characteristics of four types of rainfall: stratiform, warm convective clouds, cold convective clouds and warm mixed clouds triggered by a tropical cyclone in Shanghai from April to October 2013 are analyzed. Comparison among average raindrop spectrum and its fitting characteristics, distribution of raindrop density and water content, the distributions of raindrop size and two-dimensional spectrum velocity shows: (1) the peak structures of raindrop spectrum are related with the rainfall intensity in these cases, especially the little raindrops in the range of 0.187-1.312 mm diameters; (2)the density and its percentage of different sizes of raindrop determined its precipitation contribution proportion, and the size of raindrop with the highest rainfall contribution proportion in cold cloud precipitation is much larger than that in other three types; (3) the descending order of width of raindrop size spectra was cold convection cloud, warm mixed cloud, warm convection cloud and stratiform cloud. The comprehensive analysis on rainfall characterized by cold convective cloud on September 13 with rainfall spectrum data, radar data, rain gauge data and flash data found that in the evolution of this strong thunderstorm precipitation, a consistency existed between raindrop size distribution and other characteristics like radar reflectivity, vertically integrated liquid (VIL) above different levels, rain-gauge rain rate, and cloud-ground lightning flash rate. The ice crystals and hails produced in cold clouds melt into large drops, and then fell among small droplets and carried out coalescence and breaking made the rain rate grow rapidly. The maximum of different sizes of drops reflected the evolution of rainfall process. The comparisons between rain drop and radar products also suggested that a potential application of raindrop spectrum observations is able to compensate for the radar quantitative precipitation estimation, especially for cold cloud precipitation cases.